Grand Bahama Water Project Complete!

 After more than 4 years since it was started, the project to build and emergency reverse osmosis water plant in Freeport to be used in the event of a disaster, like a hurricane, is finally complete.

This project was brought to us and partially funded by The TK Foundation, a Bahamian charitable organization with a history of working with Rotary, and the 7020 Bahamas clubs agreed to fund with District Designated Funds (DDF - funds contributed to the Rotary Foundation by the members of our district in the past and then 50% returned to the district for use as we see fit). The matching grant was led by East Nassau, specifically DAG Lindsey Cancino and PAG Murray Forde along with PAG Sonny Waugh of the Freeport clubs of District 6990 on the Bahamas side and past RCEN member, Myles Pritchard now with the Rotary Club of Santa Monica in District 5280 in the Los Angeles area of the USA.

Many challenges were presented to this effort over the years from plant location changes to leadership changes at the Grand Bahama Port Authority but the project was finally brought to a sucessful conclusion on Wednesday, February 16th, 2011 with a commissioning ceremony attended by 10 membersof the Rotary Club of Santa Monica, various Grand Bahama Rotarians, various local government dignitaries and of course our own Pres. Joanne, AG Charles, PAG Murray and DAG Lindsey.

This project had total budget of some $217,000, $95,000 funded by Rotary, the rest by the TK Foundation, through the Rotary Foundation Matching Grant process and is an excellent example of how Rotary partnerships with other community service organizations can produce very worthwhile results.

See the attached link from GB TV for more on the project and the commissioning.